Thursday, 28 February 2019

Facebook admits 18% of Research spyware users were teens, not

Facebook has changed its story after initially trying to downplay how it targeted teens with its Research program that a TechCrunch investigation revealed was paying them gift cards to monitor all their mobile app usage and browser traffic. “Less than 5 percent of the people who chose to participate in this market research program were teens” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch and many other news outlets in a damage control effort 7 hours after we published our report on January 29th. At the time,  Facebook claimed that it had removed its Research app from iOS. The next morning we learned that wasn’t true, as Apple had already forcibly blocked the Facebook Research app for violating its Enterprise Certificate program that supposed to reserved for companies distributing internal apps to employees.

It turns out that wasn’t the only time Facebook deceived the public in its response regarding the Research VPN scandal. TechCrunch has attained Facebook’s unpublished February 21st response to questions about the Research program in a letter from Senator Mark Warner, who wrote to CEO Mark Zuckerberg that “Facebook’s apparent lack of full transparency with users – particularly in the context of ‘research’ efforts – has been a source of frustration for me.”

In the response from Facebook’s VP of US public policy Kevin Martin, the company admits that (emphasis ours) “At the time we ended the Facebook Research App on Apple’s iOS platform, less than 5 percent of the people sharing data with us through this program were teens. Analysis shows that number is about 18 percent when you look at the complete lifetime of the program, and also add people who had become inactive and uninstalled the app.” So 18 percent of research testers were teens. It was only less than 5 percent when Facebook got caught. Given users age 13 to 35 were eligible for Facebook’s Research program, 13 to 18 year olds made of 22 percent of the age range. That means Facebook clearly wasn’t trying to minimize teen involvement, nor were they just a tiny fraction of users.

WASHINGTON, DC – APRIL 10: Facebook co-founder, Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before a combined Senate Judiciary and Commerce committee hearing in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill April 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg, 33, was called to testify after it was reported that 87 million Facebook users had their personal information harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm linked to the Trump campaign. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Warner asked Facebook “Do you think any use reasonable understood Facebook was using this data for commercial purposes includingto track competitors?” Facebook response indicates it never told Research users anything about tracking “competitors”, and instead dances around the question. Facebook says the registration process told users the data would help the company “understand how people use mobile apps,” “improve . . . services,” and “introduce new features for millions of people around the world.”

Facebook had also told reporters on January 29th regarding teens’ participation, “All of them with signed parental consent forms.” Yet in its response to Senator Warner, Facebook admitted that “Potential participants were required to confirm that they were over 18 or provide other evidence of parental consent, though the vendors did not require a signed parental consent form for teen users.” In some cases, underage users merely had to check a box to claim they had parental consent, and there was no verification of users’ ages or that their parents actually approved.

Facebook pays teens to install VPN that spies on them

So to quickly recap:

Facebook targeted teens with ads on Instagram and Snapchat to join the Research program without revealing its involvement

The contradictions between Facebook’s initial response to reporters and what it told Warner, who has the power to pursue regulation of the the tech giant, shows Facebook willingness to move fast and play loose with the truth when it’s less accountable. It’s no wonder the company never shared the response with TechCrunch or posted a blog post or press release about it.

Facebook’s attempt to minimize the issue in the wake of backlash exemplifies the trend of of the social network’s “reactionary” PR strategy that employees described to BuzzFeed’s Ryan Mac. The company often views its scandals as communications errors rather than actual product screwups or as signals of deep-seeded problems with Facebook’s respect for privacy. Facebook needs to learn to take its lumps, change course, and do better rather than constantly trying to challenge details of negative press about it, especially before it has all the necessary information. Until then, the never-ending news cycle of Facebook’s self-made disasters will continue.

Below is Facebook’s full response to Senator Warner’s inquiry, followed by Warner’s original letter to Mark Zuckerberg..



source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/facebook-research-teens/
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Twitter confirms it’s working on a ‘Hide Tweet’ feature

Twitter has confirmed it’s developing a new “Hide Tweet” option, but has yet to provide detail about its launch plans for the feature. The new option, spotted in Twitter’s code, is available from a list of moderation choices that appear when you click the “Share” button on a tweet — a button whose icon has also been given a refresh, it seems. Like it sounds, “Hide Tweet” functions as an alternative to muting or blocking a user, while still offering some control over a conversation.

Related to this, an option to “View Hidden Tweets” was also found to be in the works. This allows a user to unhide those tweets that were previously hidden.

The “Hide Tweet” feature was first discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, who tweeted about her findings on Thursday.

Wong says she found the feature within the code of the Twitter Android application. That means it’s not necessarily something Twitter will release publicly, but typically indicates a feature that will move into testing.

Reached for comment earlier today, Twitter told TechCrunch some employees would soon tweet out more context about the feature. As of the time of writing, those explanations had not gone live.

However, a Twitter spokesperson did confirm the feature is something the company is actively working on.

Immediately, there were concerns an option like this would allow users to silence their critics — not just for themselves, as is possible today with muting and blocking — but for anyone reading through a stream of Twitter Replies. Imagine, for example, if a controversial politician began to hide tweets they didn’t like or those that contradicted an outrageous claim with a fact check, people said.

It also requires the user to click to view the Replies that were hidden, which some users may not know to do and others may not bother to do. They may then miss out on an important point in the conversation, or a critical fact check.

On the flip side, putting the original poster back in control of which Replies are visible may allow people to feel more comfortable with sharing on Twitter, which could impact user growth — a number Twitter struggles with today. And it could encourage people to debate things with less vitriol, knowing that their nastier tweets could get hidden view.

It wasn’t immediately clear from Wong’s first screenshots if the “Hide Tweet” button was something that hides the tweet from everyone’s view, or just from the person who clicked the button.

However, Wong later published the code reference itself, where the feature is described as a “moderation” action. That implies it’s more about the health of the conversation as a whole, not a personal setting.

The feature’s discovery comes at a time when Twitter has been under increased pressure to improve the overall conversational health on its platform.

In a recent interview, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that it puts most of the burden on the victims of abuse, which has been “a huge fail.” He said Twitter was looking into new ways to proactively enforce and promote health, so blocking and reporting were last resorts.

A “Hide Tweet” button doesn’t seem to fit into that plan, as it requires users’ direct involvement with the moderation process.

It’s worth also noting that Twitter already has a “hidden tweets” feature of sorts.

In 2018, the company introduced a new filtering strategy to hide disruptive tweets, which takes into consideration various behavioral signals — like whether the account had verified its email, is frequently blocked or tweets often at accounts that don’t follow it back, for example. If Twitter determined the tweet should be downranked, it moved it to its own secluded part of the Reply thread, under a “Show more replies” button.

Twitter tests a number of things that never see the light of day in a public product. More recently, the company said it was weighing the idea of a “clarifying function” for explaining old tweets. It’s also launching a prototype app that will experiment with new ideas around conversation threads.

Update, Feb 28, 2019, 4:55 PM ET: Added tweet with code reference. 



source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/a-new-hide-tweet-button-has-been-spotted-in-twitters-code/
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A new ‘Hide Tweet’ button has been spotted in Twitter’s code

Twitter confirmed it has in development a new “Hide Tweet” option, but has yet to provide more detail about its plans for the feature. The new option, spotted in Twitter’s code, is available from a list of moderation choices that appear when you click the “Share” button on a tweet – a button whose icon has also been given a refresh, it seems. Like it sounds, “Hide Tweet” appears to function as an alternative to muting or blocking a user, while still offering some control over a conversation.

Related to this, an option to “View Hidden Tweets” was also found to be in the works. This appears to allow a user to unhide those tweets that were previously hidden.

The “Hide Tweet” feature was first discovered by Jane Manchun Wong, who tweeted about her findings on Thursday.

Wong says she found the feature within the code of the Twitter Android application. That means it’s not necessarily something Twitter will release publicly, but has at least thought about seriously enough to develop.

Reached for comment earlier today, Twitter told us some employees would soon tweet out more context about the feature. As of the time of writing, those explanations had not gone live.

Immediately, there were concerns an option like this would allow users to silence their critics – not just for themselves, as is possible today with muting and blocking – but for anyone reading through a stream of Twitter Replies. Imagine, for example, if a controversial politician began to hide tweets they didn’t like or those that contradicted an outrageous claim with a fact check, people said.

On the flip side, putting the original poster back in control of which Replies are visible may allow people to feel more comfortable with sharing on Twitter, which could impact user growth – a number Twitter struggles with today.

But as of now, it’s not clear that the “Hide Tweet” button is something that would hide the tweet from everyone’s view, or just the from the person who clicked the button.

It’s also unclear what stage of development the feature is in, or if it will be part of a larger change to moderation controls.

If Twitter chooses to comment, we’ll update with those answers.

The feature’s discovery comes at a time when Twitter has been under increased pressure to improve the conversational health on its platform.

In a recent interview, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that it puts most of the burden on the victims of abuse, which has been “a huge fail.” He said Twitter was looking into new way to proactively enforce and promote health, so blocking and reporting were last resorts.

A “Hide Tweet” button doesn’t seem to fit into that plan, as it requires users’ direct involvement with the moderation process.

It’s worth also noting that Twitter already has a “hidden tweets” feature of sorts.

In 2018, the company introduced a new filtering strategy to hide disruptive tweets, which takes into consideration various behavioral signals – like whether the account had verified its email, is frequently blocked, or tweets often at accounts that don’t follow it back, for example. If Twitter determined the tweet should be downranked, it moved it to its own secluded part of the Reply thread, under a “Show more replies” button.

Twitter tests a number of things that never see the light of day in a public product. More recently, the company said it was weighing the idea of a “clarifying function” for explaining old tweets. It’s also launching a prototype app that will experiment with new ideas around conversation threads.

 



source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/a-new-hide-tweet-button-has-been-spotted-in-twitters-code/
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Daily Crunch: TikTok faces children’s privacy fine

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. FTC ruling sees Musical.ly (TikTok) fined $5.7M for violating children’s privacy law, app updated with age gate

In an app update released yesterday, all users will need to verify their age, and the under 13-year-olds will then be directed to a separate, more restricted in-app experience that protects their personal information and prevents them from publishing videos to TikTok.

And if you’re confused about Musical.ly versus TikTok: The Federal Trade Commission had begun looking into TikTok back when it was known as Musical.ly, and the ruling itself is a settlement with Musical.ly.

2. How Disney built Star Wars, in real life

Over the course of the past five years, Walt Disney Imagineering has been hard at work making the world of Star Wars a reality on Earth. Matthew Panzarino has all the details, with plenty of tantalizing images.

3. Amazon Prime members can choose a weekly delivery date with launch of ‘Amazon Day’

The option lets shoppers pick a day of the week to take delivery of their recent orders. The boxes will then arrive together on the selected Amazon Day, in fewer boxes.

4. Zūm, a ridesharing service for kids, raises $40M

Zūm is a mobile app that enables parents to schedule rides for their kids from fully vetted drivers. It also partners with school districts to support their transportation needs.

5. Dow Jones’ watchlist of 2.4 million high-risk individuals has leaked

The data, since secured, is the financial giant’s Watchlist database, which companies use as part of their risk and compliance efforts.

6. SoftBank’s Vision Fund invests $1.5B in Chinese second-hand car startup Chehaoduo

The Beijing-based company operates two main sites — peer-to-peer online marketplace Guazi for used vehicles, and Maodou, which retails new sedans through direct sales and financial leasing.

7. Netflix may be losing $192M per month from piracy, cord cutting study claims

As many as one in five people today are mooching off of someone else’s account when streaming video from Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Video, according to a new study from CordCutting.com. Of these, Netflix tends to be pirated for the longest period.



source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/daily-crunch-tiktok-fine/
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Privacy complaints received by tech giants’ favorite EU watchdog up more than 2x since GDPR

A report by the lead data watchdog for a large number of tech giants operating in Europe shows a significant increase in privacy complaints and data breach notifications since the region’s updated privacy framework came into force last May.

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC)’s annual report, published today, covers the period May 25, aka the day the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, to December 31 2018 and shows the DPC received more than double the amount of complaints post-GDPR vs the first portion of 2018 prior to the new regime coming in: With 2,864 and 1,249 complaints received respectively.

That makes a total of 4,113 complaints for full year 2018 (vs just 2,642 for 2017). Which is a year on year increase of 36 per cent.

But the increase pre- and post-GDPR is even greater — 56 per cent — suggesting the regulation is working as intended by building momentum and support for individuals to exercise their fundamental rights.

“The phenomenon that is the [GDPR] has demonstrated one thing above all else: people’s interest in and appetite for understanding and controlling use of their personal data is anything but a reflection of apathy and fatalism,” writes Helen Dixon, Ireland’s commissioner for data protection.

She adds that the rise in the number of complaints and queries to DPAs across the EU since May 25 demonstrates “a new level of mobilisation to action on the part of individuals to tackle what they see as misuse or failure to adequately explain what is being done with their data”.

While Europe has had online privacy rules since 1995 a weak regime of enforcement essentially allowed them to be ignored for decades — and Internet companies to grab and exploit web users’ data without full regard and respect for European’s privacy rights.

But regulators hit the reset button last year. And Ireland’s data watchdog is an especially interesting agency to watch if you’re interested in assessing how GDPR is working, given how many tech giants have chosen to place their international data flows under the Irish DPC’s supervision.

More cross-border complaints

“The role places an important duty on the DPC to safeguard the data protection rights of hundreds of millions of individuals across the EU, a duty that the GDPR requires the DPC to fulfil in cooperation with other supervisory authorities,” the DPC writes in the report, discussing its role of supervisory authority for multiple tech multinationals and acknowledging both a “greatly expanded role under the GDPR” and a “significantly increased workload”.

A breakdown of GDPR vs Data Protection Act 1998 complaint types over the report period suggests complaints targeted at multinational entities have leapt up under the new DP regime.

For some complaint types the old rules resulted in just 2 per cent of complaints being targeted at multinationals vs close to a quarter (22 per cent) in the same categories under GDPR.

It’s the most marked difference between the old rules and the new — underlining the DPC’s expanded workload in acting as a hub (and often lead supervisory agency) for cross-border complaints under GDPR’s one-stop shop mechanism.

The category with the largest proportions of complaints under GDPR over the report period was access rights (30%) — with the DPC receiving a full 582 complaints related to people feeling they’re not getting their due data. Access rights was also most complained about under the prior data rules over this period.

Other prominent complaint types continue to be unfair processing of data (285 GDPR complaints vs 178 under the DPA); disclosure (217 vs 138); and electronic direct marketing (111 vs 36).

EU policymakers’ intent with GDPR is to redress the imbalance of weakly enforced rights — including by creating new opportunities for enforcement via a regime of supersized fines. (GDPR allows for penalties as high as up to 4 per cent of annual turnover, and in January the French data watchdog slapped Google with a $57M GDPR penalty related to transparency and consent — albeit still far off that theoretical maximum.)

Importantly, the regulation also introduced a collective redress option which has been adopted by some EU Member States.

This allows for third party organizations such as consumer rights groups to lodge data protection complaints on individuals’ behalf. The provision has led to a number of strategic complaints being filed by organized experts since last May (including in the case of the aforementioned Google fine) — spinning up momentum for collective consumer action to counter rights erosion. Again that’s important in a complex area that remains difficult for consumers to navigate without expert help.

For upheld complaints the GDPR ‘nuclear option’ is not fines though; it’s the ability for data protection agencies to order data controllers to stop processing data.

That remains the most significant tool in the regulatory toolbox. And depending on the outcome of various ongoing strategic GDPR complaints it could prove hugely significant in reshaping what data experts believe are systematic privacy incursions by adtech platform giants.

And while well-resourced tech giants may be able to factor in even very meaty financial penalties, as just a cost of doing a very lucrative business, data-focused business models could be far more precarious if processors can suddenly be slapped with an order to limit or even cease processing data. (As indeed Facebook’s business just has in Germany, where antitrust regulators have been liaising with privacy watchdogs.)

Data breach notifications also up

GDPR also shines a major spotlight on security — requiring privacy by design and default and introducing a universal requirement for swiftly reporting data breaches across the bloc, again with very stiff penalties for non-compliance.

On the data breach front, the Irish DPC says it received a total of 3,687 data breach notifications between May 25 and December 31 last year — finding just four per cent (145 cases) did not meet the definition of a personal-data breach set out in GDPR. That means it recorded a total of 3,542 valid data protection breaches over the report period — which it says represents an increase of 27 per cent on 2017 breach report figures.

“As in other years, the highest category of data breaches notified under the GDPR were classified as Unauthorised Disclosures and accounted for just under 85% of the total data-breach notifications received between 25 May and 31 December 2018,” it notes, adding: “The majority occurred in the private sector (2,070).”

More than 4,000 data breach notifications were recorded by the watchdog for full year 2018, the report also states.

The DPC further reveals that it was notified of 38 personal data breaches involving 11 multinational technology companies during the post-GDPR period of 2018. Which means breaches involving tech giants.

“A substantial number of these notifications involved the unauthorised disclosure of, and unauthorised access to, personal data as a result of bugs in software supplied by data processors engaged by the organisations,” it writes, saying it opened several investigations as a result (such as following the Facebook Token breach in September 2018).

Open probes of tech giants

As of 31 December 2018, the DPC says it had 15 investigations open in relation to multinational tech companies’ compliance with GDPR.

Below is the full list of the DPC’s currently open investigations of multinationals — including the tech giant under scrutiny; the origin of the inquiry; and the issues being examined:

  • Facebook Ireland Limited — Complaint-based inquiry: “Right of Access and Data Portability. Examining whether Facebook has discharged its GDPR obligations in respect of the right of access to personal data in the Facebook ‘Hive’ database and portability of “observed” personal data”
  • Facebook Ireland Limited — Complaint-based inquiry: “Lawful basis for processing in relation to Facebook’s Terms of Service and Data Policy. Examining whether Facebook has discharged its GDPR obligations in respect of the lawful basis on which it relies to process personal data of individuals using the Facebook platform.”
  • Facebook Ireland Limited — Complaint-based inquiry: “Lawful basis for processing. Examining whether Facebook has discharged its GDPR obligations in respect of the lawful basis on which it relies to process personal data in the context of behavioural analysis and targeted advertising on its platform.”
  • Facebook Ireland Limited — Own-volition inquiry: “Facebook September 2018 token breach. Examining whether Facebook Ireland has discharged its GDPR obligations to implement organisational and technical measures to secure and safeguard the personal data of its users.”
  • Facebook Ireland Limited — Own-volition inquiry: “Facebook September 2018 token breach. Examining Facebook’s compliance with the GDPR’s breach notification obligations.”
  • Facebook Inc. — Own-volition inquiry: “Facebook September 2018 token breach. Examining whether Facebook Inc. has discharged its GDPR obligations to implement organizational and technical measures to secure and safeguard the personal data of its users.”
  • Facebook Ireland Limited — Own-volition inquiry: “Commenced in response to large number of breaches notified to the DPC during the period since 25 May 2018 (separate to the token breach). Examining whether Facebook has discharged its GDPR obligations to implement organisational and technical measures to secure and safeguard the personal data of its users.”
  • Instagram (Facebook Ireland Limited) — Complaint-based inquiry: “Lawful basis for processing in relation to Instagram’s Terms of Use and Data Policy. Examining whether Instagram has discharged its GDPR obligations in respect of the lawful basis on which it relies to process personal data of individuals using the Instagram platform.”
  • WhatsApp Ireland Limited — Complaint-based inquiry: “Lawful basis for processing in relation to WhatsApp’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Examining whether WhatsApp has discharged its GDPR obligations in respect of the lawful basis on which it relies to process personal data of individuals using the WhatsApp platform.”
  • WhatsApp Ireland Limited — Own-volition inquiry: “Transparency. Examining whether WhatsApp has discharged its GDPR transparency obligations with regard to the provision of information and the transparency of that information to both users and non-users of WhatsApp’s services, including information provided to data subjects about the processing of information between WhatsApp and other Facebook companies.”
  • Twitter International Company — Complaint-based inquiry: “Right of Access. Examining whether Twitter has discharged its obligations in respect of the right of access to links accessed on Twitter.”
  • Twitter International Company — Own-volition inquiry: “Commenced in response to the large number of breaches notified to the DPC during the period since 25 May 2018. Examining whether Twitter has discharged its GDPR obligations to implement organisational and technical measures to secure and safeguard the personal data of its users.”
  • LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company — Complaint-based inquiry: “Lawful basis for processing. Examining whether LinkedIn has discharged its GDPR obligations in respect of the lawful basis on which it relies to process personal data in the context of behavioural analysis and targeted advertising on its platform.”
  • Apple Distribution International — Complaint-based inquiry: “Lawful basis for processing. Examining whether Apple has discharged its GDPR obligations in respect of the lawful basis on which it relies to process personal data in the context of behavioural analysis and targeted advertising on its platform.”
  • Apple Distribution International — Complaint-based inquiry: “Transparency. Examining whether Apple has discharged its GDPR transparency obligations in respect of the information contained in its privacy policy and online documents regarding the processing of personal data of users of its services.”

“The DPC’s role in supervising the data-processing operations of the numerous large data-rich multinational companies — including technology internet and social media companies — with EU headquarters located in Ireland changed immeasurably on 25 May 2018,” the watchdog acknowledges.

“For many, including Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter, Dropbox, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Oath [disclosure: TechCrunch is owned by Verizon Media Group; aka Oath/AOL], WhatsApp, MTCH Technology and Yelp, the DPC acts as lead supervisory authority under the GDPR OSS [one-stop shop] facility.”

The DPC notes in the report that between May 25 and December 31 2018 it received 136 cross-border processing complaints through the regulation’s OSS mechanism (i.e. which had been lodged by individuals with other EU data protection authorities).

A breakdown of these (likely) tech giant focused GDPR complaints shows a strong focus on consent, right of erasure, right of access and the lawfulness of data processing:

Breakdown of cross-border complaint types received by the DPC under GDPR’s OSS mechanism

While the Irish DPC acts as the lead supervisor for many high profile GDPR complaints which relate to how tech giants are handling people’s data, it’s worth emphasizing that the OSS mechanism does not mean Ireland is sitting in sole judgement on Silicon Valley’s giants’ rights incursions in Europe.

The mechanism allows for other DPAs to be involved in these cross-border complaints.

And the European Data Protection Board, the body that works with all the EU Member States’ DPAs to help ensure consistent application of the regulation, can trigger a dispute resolution process if a lead agency considers it cannot implement a concerned agency objection. The aim is to work against forum shopping.

In a section on “EU cooperation”, the DPC further writes:

Our fellow EU regulators, alongside whom we sit on the European Data Protection Board (EDPB), follow the activities and results of the Irish DPC closely, given that a significant number of people in every EU member state are potentially impacted by processing activities of the internet companies located in Ireland. EDPB activity is intense, with monthly plenary meetings and a new system of online data sharing in relation to cross-border processing cases rolled out between the authorities. The DPC has led on the development of EDPB guidance on arrangements for Codes of Conduct under the GDPR and these should be approved and published by the EDPB in Q1 of 2019. The DPC looks forward to industry embracing Codes of Conduct and raising the bar in individual sectors in terms of standards of data protection and transparency. Codes of Conduct are important because they will more comprehensively reflect the context and reality of data-processing activities in a given sector and provide clarity to those who sign up to the standards that need to be attained in addition to external monitoring by an independent body. It is clarity of standards that will drive real results.

Over the reported period the watchdog also reveals that it issued 23 formal requests seeking detailed information on compliance with various aspects of the GDPR from tech giants, noting too that since May 25 it has engaged with platforms on “a broad range of issues” — citing the following examples to give a flavor of these concerns:

  • Google on the processing of location data
  • Facebook on issues such as the transfer of personal data from third-party apps to Facebook and Facebook’s collaboration with external researchers
  • Microsoft on the processing of telemetry data collected by its Office product
  • WhatsApp on matters relating to the sharing of personal data with other Facebook companies

“Supervision engagement with these companies on

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/privacy-complaints-received-by-tech-giants-favorite-eu-watchdog-up-more-than-2x-since-gdpr/

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Affordable, Stat-Based Retail Strategy For Your Agency's Clients

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ClassDojo, an app to help teachers and parents communicate better, raises $35M

Messaging apps have become the de facto way that many people today keep in regular contact with each other, and that trend has also found its way into the classroom. ClassDojo, a startup that has built a platform for teachers and parents to communicate small and big updates to each other, today is announcing that it has raised $35 million in funding.

The Series C — which is being jointly led by GSV (behind Spotify, Lyft, Dropbox) and SignalFire (which has backed Grammarly, Zume, Lime), and also includes General Catalyst and Uncork Capital — will be used in two ways. First, to fuel expansion of ClassDojo’s free communications app. And second, to drive its efforts to monetize its service by way of a new service called Beyond School, an optional subscription for families to complement in-school work with at-home tutorials around areas that are complementary to learning well, such as improving studying habits, mindfulness and so on.

(You could think of Beyond School as TedX meets Lynda for K-8, but co-founders Sam Chaudhary and Liam Don, respectively the CEO and CTO, said in an interview that they believe the content will be more than just that.)

ClassDojo has now raised $65 million, and while it is not talking valuation, I’ve been told by a good source that it is coming in at “$400ish” million. That is a huge leap on the $99 million the startup was valued at in 2015 (a figure quoted on PitchBook).

The boost in part is because of ClassDojo’s healthy growth. Since first starting out in 2011 as part of a Y Combinator cohort, the company has expanded to be used in more than 95 percent of all pre K to eighth grade schools in the US, with one in every six families with a child in primary school using the app daily.

The US is its biggest market, but ClassDojo is also now available in some 180 other countries, where it’s also starting to pick up some strong penetration. (In Singapore, Australia, Spain, Hong Kong, the UK, and the UAE, it’s used by some 25 percent of all primary school teachers, for example.) Impressively, all that growth has up to now been organic and word of mouth, one reason why the company has had to raise relatively little funding.

(It also only employs 40 people, another way of keeping costs massively down.)

One of the key things about ClassDojo is that the company has kept a very consistent focus when it comes to its mission: the idea has always been to try to identify the biggest communication problems that teachers might have in teaching kids, and trying to solve them.

Building an app that can bridge the sometimes large gaps between parent-teacher meetings, so that parents feel more engaged with what their children are learning, and teachers might have better feedback from those parents about what children are doing at home, was an obvious first step.

“Learning is so much about having strong relationships,” Chaudhary said. “It’s pretty cool to see the effect this can have not just with parents and teachers, but between parents and kids.”

Beyond School comes in the same vein and is a natural extension of that, and came not just out of what teachers said they wished they had more time to teach to students — but can’t because of the general emphasis in curriculums on academics — but from what parents wished they could work on with their children.

That, in essence, is the wider body of “learning” that you could loosely term emotional intelligence, and general techniques for coping and learning, beyond the academic work itself. “The learning experience in the classroom sparked a lot of ideas, and families were reaching out to us,” Dom said, “wondering if they could have a product to serve more unique needs at home.”

So far, the company does not have any numbers to share on how Beyond School has been taken up since launching at the end of 2018, except to say that it’s going well.

Longer term, it’s interesting to consider how ClassDojo fits into the wider trend of communication and messaging apps, and whether others might ever try to compete in the same space, or perhaps acquire ClassDojo as they extend into other verticals — a strategy that Microsoft, for example, has been following when it comes to acquiring other businesses as it works on tapping the $10 trillion market for education.

I asked Hemant Taneja, a partner at General Catalyst, if he ever thought the likes of Slack, for example, might ever try to compete with it. (No, is the short answer.)

“Slack is a work tool, and I can’t imagine there will be a synergy there,” he said, and nor would it possibly even work. “As a worker and parent, I think that there should be an education platform solely devoted to kids, where the stakeholders are family and teachers. I’ve always believed that from the beginning and I think that ClassDojo’s scale gives it that potential.”

 



source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/classdojo-an-app-to-help-teachers-and-parents-communicate-better-raises-35m/
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LinkedIn forced to ‘pause’ mentioned in the news feature in Europe after complaints about ID mix-ups

LinkedIn has been forced to ‘pause’ a feature in Europe in which the platform emails members’ connections when they’ve been ‘mentioned in the news’.

The regulatory action follows a number of data protection complaints after LinkedIn’s algorithms incorrect matched members to news articles — triggering a review of the feature and subsequent suspension order.

The feature appears as a case study in the ‘Technology Multinationals Supervision’ section of an annual report published today by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). Although the report does not explicitly name LinkedIn — but we’ve confirmed it is the named professional social network.

The data watchdog’s report cites “two complaints about a feature on a professional networking platform” after LinkedIn incorrectly associated the members with media articles that were not actually about them.

“In one of the complaints, a media article that set out details of the private life and unsuccessful career of a person of the same name as the complainant was circulated to the complainant’s connections and followers by the data controller,” the DPC writes, noting the complainant initially complained to the company itself but did not receive a satisfactory response — hence taking up the matter with the regulator.

“The complainant stated that the article had been detrimental to their professional standing and had resulted in the loss of contracts for their business,” it adds.

“The second complaint involved the circulation of an article that the complainant believed could be detrimental to future career prospects, which the data controller had not vetted correctly.”

LinkedIn appears to have been matching members to news articles by simple name matching — with obvious potential for identity mix-ups between people with shared names.

“It was clear from the complaints that matching by name only was insufficient, giving rise to data protection concerns, primarily the lawfulness, fairness and accuracy of the personal data processing utilised by the ‘Mentions in the news’ feature,” the DPC writes.

“As a result of these complaints and the intervention of the DPC, the data controller undertook a review of the feature. The result of this review was to suspend the feature for EU-based members, pending improvements to safeguard its members’ data.”

We reached out to LinkedIn with questions and it pointed us to this blog post where it confirms: “We are pausing our Mentioned in the News feature for our EU members while we reevaluate its effectiveness.”

LinkedIn adds that it is reviewing the accuracy of the feature, writing:

As referenced in the Irish Data Protection Commission’s report, we received useful feedback from our members about the feature and as a result are evaluating the accuracy and functionality of Mentioned in the News for all members.

The company’s blog post also points users to a page where they can find out more about the ‘mentioned in the news’ feature and get information on how to manage their LinkedIn email notification settings.

The Irish DPC’s action is not the first privacy strike against LinkedIn in Europe.

Late last year, in its early annual report, on the pre-GDPR portion of 2018, the watchdog revealed it had investigated complaints about LinkedIn related to it targeting non-users with adverts for its service.

The DPC found the company had obtained emails for 18 million people for whom it did not have consent to process their data. In that case LinkedIn agreed to cease processing the data entirely.

That complaint also led the DPC to audit LinkedIn. It then found a further privacy problem, discovering the company had been using its social graph algorithms to try to build suggested networks of compatible professional connections for non-members.

The regulator ordered LinkedIn to cease this “pre-compute processing” of non-members’ data and delete all personal data associated with it prior to GDPR coming into force.

LinkedIn said it had “voluntarily changed our practices as a result”.

LinkedIn violated data protection by using 18M email addresses of non-members to buy targeted ads on Facebook



source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/linkedin-forced-to-pause-mentioned-in-the-news-feature-in-europe-after-complaints-about-id-mix-ups/
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Affordable, Stat-Based Retail Strategy For Your Agency’s Clients

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Wednesday, 27 February 2019

14 SEO Predictions for 2019 and Beyond, as Told by Mozzers

Posted by TheMozTeam

With the new year in full swing and an already busy first quarter, our 2019 predictions for SEO in the new year are hopping onto the scene a little late — but fashionably so, we hope. From an explosion of SERP features to increased monetization to the key drivers of search this year, our SEO experts have consulted their crystal balls (read: access to mountains of data and in-depth analyses) and made their predictions. Read on for an exhaustive list of fourteen things to watch out for in search from our very own Dr. Pete, Britney Muller, Rob Bucci, Russ Jones, and Miriam Ellis!

1. Answers will drive search

People Also Ask boxes exploded in 2018, and featured snippets have expanded into both multifaceted and multi-snippet versions. Google wants to answer questions, it wants to answer them across as many devices as possible, and it will reward sites with succinct, well-structured answers. Focus on answers that naturally leave visitors wanting more and establish your brand and credibility. [Dr. Peter J. Meyers]

Further reading:

2. Voice search will continue to be utterly useless for optimization

Optimizing for voice search will still be no more than optimizing for featured snippets, and conversions from voice will remain a dark box. [Russ Jones]

Further reading:

3. Mobile is table stakes

This is barely a prediction. If your 2019 plan is to finally figure out mobile, you're already too late. Almost all Google features are designed with mobile-first in mind, and the mobile-first index has expanded rapidly in the past few months. Get your mobile house (not to be confused with your mobile home) in order as soon as you can. [Dr. Peter J. Meyers]

Further reading:

4. Further SERP feature intrusions in organic search

Expect Google to find more and more ways to replace organic with solutions that keep users on Google’s property. This includes interactive SERP features that replace, slowly but surely, many website offerings in the same way that live scores, weather, and flights have. [Russ Jones]

Further reading:

5. Video will dominate niches

Featured Videos, Video Carousels, and Suggested Clips (where Google targets specific content in a video) are taking over the how-to spaces. As Google tests search appliances with screens, including Home Hub, expect video to dominate instructional and DIY niches. [Dr. Peter J. Meyers]

Further reading:

6. SERPs will become more interactive

We’ve seen the start of interactive SERPs with People Also Ask Boxes. Depending on which question you expand, two to three new questions will generate below that directly pertain to your expanded question. This real-time engagement keeps people on the SERP longer and helps Google better understand what a user is seeking. [Britney Muller]

Further reading:

7. Local SEO: Google will continue getting up in your business — literally

Google will continue asking more and more intimate questions about your business to your customers. Does this business have gender-neutral bathrooms? Is this business accessible? What is the atmosphere like? How clean is it? What kind of lighting do they have? And so on. If Google can acquire accurate, real-world information about your business (your percentage of repeat customers via geocaching, price via transaction history, etc.) they can rely less heavily on website signals and provide more accurate results to searchers. [Britney Muller]

Further reading:

8. Business proximity-to-searcher will remain a top local ranking factor

In Moz’s recent State of Local SEO report, the majority of respondents agreed that Google’s focus on the proximity of a searcher to local businesses frequently emphasizes distance over quality in the local SERPs. I predict that we’ll continue to see this heavily weighting the results in 2019. On the one hand, hyper-localized results can be positive, as they allow a diversity of businesses to shine for a given search. On the other hand, with the exception of urgent situations, most people would prefer to see best options rather than just closest ones. [Miriam Ellis]

Further reading:

9. Local SEO: Google is going to increase monetization

Look to see more of the local and maps space monetized uniquely by Google both through Adwords and potentially new lead-gen models. This space will become more and more competitive. [Russ Jones]

Further reading:

10. Monetization tests for voice

Google and Amazon have been moving towards voice-supported displays in hopes of better monetizing voice. It will be interesting to see their efforts to get displays in homes and how they integrate the display advertising. Bold prediction: Amazon will provide sleep-mode display ads similar to how Kindle currently displays them today. [Britney Muller]

11. Marketers will place a greater focus on the SERPs

I expect we’ll see a greater focus on the analysis of SERPs as Google does more to give people answers without them having to leave the search results. We’re seeing more and more vertical search engines like Google Jobs, Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Shopping. We’re also seeing more in-depth content make it onto the SERP than ever in the form of featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and more. With these new developments, marketers are increasingly going to want to report on their general brand visibility within the SERPs, not just their website ranking. It’s going to be more important than ever for people to be measuring all the elements within a SERP, not just their own ranking. [Rob Bucci]

Further reading:

12. Targeting topics will be more productive than targeting queries

2019 is going to be another year in which we see the emphasis on individual search queries start to decline, as people focus more on clusters of queries around topics. People Also Ask queries have made the importance of topics much more obvious to the SEO industry. With PAAs, Google is clearly illustrating that they think about searcher experience in terms of a searcher’s satisfaction across an entire topic, not just a specific search query. With this in mind, we can expect SEOs to more and more want to see their search queries clustered into topics so they can measure their visibility and the competitive landscape across these clusters. [Rob Bucci]

Further reading:

13. Linked unstructured citations will receive increasing focus

I recently conducted a small study in which there was a 75% correlation between organic and local pack rank. Linked unstructured citations (the mention of partial or complete business information + a link on any type of relevant website) are a means of improving organic rankings which underpin local rankings. They can also serve as a non-Google dependent means of driving traffic and leads. Anything you’re not having to pay Google for will become increasingly precious. Structured citations on key local business listing platforms will remain table stakes, but competitive local businesses will need to focus on unstructured data to move the needle. [Miriam Ellis]

Further reading:

14. Reviews will remain a competitive difference-maker

A Google rep recently stated that about one-third of local searches are made with the intent of reading reviews. This is huge. Local businesses that acquire and maintain a good and interactive reputation on the web will have a critical advantage over brands that ignore reviews as fundamental to customer service. Competitive local businesses will earn, monitor, respond to, and analyze the sentiment of their review corpus. [Miriam Ellis]

Further reading:

We’ve heard from Mozzers, and now we want to hear from you. What have you seen so far in 2019 that’s got your SEO Spidey senses tingling? What trends are you capitalizing on and planning for? Let us know in the comments below (and brag to friends and colleagues when your prediction comes true in the next 6–10 months). ;-)


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source https://moz.com/blog/14-seo-predictions-2019
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TikTok is launching a series of online safety videos in its app

On the heels of news that TikTok has reached 1 billion downloads, the company today is launching new initiative designed to help inform users about online safety, TikTok’s various privacy settings and other controls they can use within its app, and more. Instead of dumping this information in an in-app FAQ or help documentation, the company will release a series of video tutorials that are meant to be engaging and fun, in order to better resemble the other content on TikTok itself.

The safety series, called “You’re in Control,” will star TikTok users and will make use of popular memes, in-app editing tricks and other effects, just like other TikTok videos do.

The videos will focus on a range of privacy, safety and well-being settings and other safety-related policies. This includes TikTok’s Community Guidelines, how in-app reporting works, plus other settings for protecting your privacy, control comments, those to manage your screen time, and more.

They’re not exactly your traditional how-to videos, however.

Instead, the videos showcase what’s often a more serious issues – like being overrun with unwanted messages – in a humorous fashion. For example, in the video about configuring your message controls, angry commenters are depicted as shouting passengers on an airplane while the user is depicted by an overwhelmed flight attendant.

“Too many DMs?,” the video asks. The flight attendant snaps his fingers, which causes most of the passengers to disappear. The scene returns to peace and quiet. It’s a simple enough analogy for TikTok’s younger user base to understand.

This is then followed by a screen recording that shows you how to turn off messaging within the TikTok app’s settings.

Other videos have a similar style.

A barking, growling dog is used to demonstrate Restricted Mode, for instance. A noisy crowd overlooking someone’s shoulder is the intro on the video about using comment controls.

Another video encourages the use of screen time controls, asking “can’t put your phone down?” and shows someone so wrapped up in their phone they aren’t watching where they’re walking.

But the video about the Community Guidelines is maybe the most cringe-y, as it feels a bit like your parents reminding you to “play nice.” However, it still manages to set a tone for what TikTok wants to promote – a community for “positive vibes” where everyone feels “safe and comfortable.”

At launch, there are seven of these short-form videos in the safety series, which will launch in the TikTok app in the U.S. and U.K on Wednesday. In time, the company plans to add other tutorials and expand the series across its global markets, it says.

Of course, TikTok needs more than a series of videos to make its app a safe and welcoming community, the way it desires. It also needs a combination of policies, settings, controls, technology, moderation, and more, the company says.

That said, a focus on user education is an important aspect to this larger goal – and it stands in stark contrast to how Facebook intentionally made its privacy settings so complex and difficult to find and use for so many of its earlier years, that people gave up trying.

How well TikTok can execute on user privacy and safety as the app grows still remains to be seen. For now, it tends to be talked about as either a wholesome and fun video experience, or an online cesspool filled with hateful content and child predators. It’s an app on the internet, so both versions of this story are likely true.

There is no large user-generated content site – even those run by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – that has figured how to properly police the hatefulness and evil contained in humanity. But TikTok, at least, takes care not to showcase that content in its main feed – you have to seek it out directly (or train its algorithm by never clicking on anything wholesome.)

But, so far, TikTok has been better reviewed by child safety advocates than you might expect. For instance, Common Sense Media – a nonprofit that provides unbiased and trusted advice about all sorts of media, including apps – said that the app, used with parental supervision, can be “a kid-friendly experience.”

The launch of the video series comes at a time when TikTok’s growth is surging. The app recently surpassed a billion installs across the iOS App Store and Google Play, including Lite versions and regional variations, but excluding Android installs in China, according to data from Sensor Tower.

Roughly 25 percent of those installs are from India, the report said. And around 663 million of TikTok’s total installs occurred in 2018, which made the app the No. 4 most downloaded non-game for the year.

However, installs alone don’t tell the story of how many people actually use the app or how often. And a chunk of these could be the same user installing the app on multiple devices, or even bots used to push the app up the charts. In addition, parents often download the app their tween or teen is using for monitoring purposes, but don’t engage with the app or its content on a regular basis.

 

 

 



source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/27/tiktok-is-launching-a-series-of-online-safety-videos-in-its-app/
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Threads emerges from stealth with $10.5M from Sequoia for a new take on enabling work conversations

The rapid rise of Slack has ushered in a new wave of apps, all aiming to solve one challenge: creating a user-friendly platform where coworkers can have productive conversations. Many of these are based around real-time notifications and “instant” messaging, but today a new startup called Threads coming out of stealth to address the other side of the coin: a platform for asynchronous communication that is less time-sensitive, and creating coherent narratives out of those conversations.

Armed with $10.5 million in funding from Sequoia, the company is launching a beta of its service today.

Rousseau Kazi, the startup’s CEO who co-founded threads with Jon McCord, Mark Rich and Suman Venkataswamy, cut his social teeth working for six years at Facebook (with a resulting number of patents to his name around the mechanics of social networking), says that the mission of Threads is to become more inclusive when it comes to online conversations.

“After a certain number of people get involved in an online discussion, conversations just break and messaging becomes chaotic,” he said. (McCord and Rich are also Facebook engineering alums, while Venkataswamy is a Bright Roll alum.)

And if you have ever used Twitter, or even been in a popular channel in Slack, you will understand what he is talking about. When too many people begin to talk, the conversation gets very noisy and it can mean losing the “thread” of what is being discussed, and seeing conversation lurch from one topic to another, often losing track of important information in the process.

And there is an argument to be made for whether a platform that was built for real-time information is capable of handling a difference kind of cadence. Twitter, as it happens, is trying to figure that out right now. Slack, meanwhile, has itself introduced threaded comments to try to address this too — although the practical application of its own threading feature is not actually very user friendly.

Threads answer is to view its purpose as addressing the benefit of “asynchronous” conversation.

To start, those who want to start threads first register as organizations on the platform. Then, those who are working on a project or in a specific team creates a “space” for themselves within that org. You can then start threads within those spaces. And when a problem has been solved or the conversation has come to a conclusion, the last comment gets marked as the conclusion.

The idea is that topics and conversations that can stretch out over hours, days or even longer, around specific topics. Threads doeesn’t want to be the place you go for red alerts or urgent requests, but where you go when you have thoughts about a work-related subject and how to tackle it.

[gallery ids="1789615,1789614,1789613,1789612,1789611,1789609,1789608,1789607,1789606"]

These resulting threads, when completed or when in progress, can in turn be looked at as straight conversations, or as annotated narratives.

For now, it’s up to users themselves to annotate what might be important to highlight for readers, although when I asked him, Kazi told me he would like to incorporate over time more features that might use natural language processing to summarize and pull out what might be worth following up or looking at if you only want to skim read a longer conversation. Ditto the ability to search threads. Right now it’s all based around keywords but you can imagine a time when more sophisticated and nuanced searches to surface conversations relevant to what you might be looking for.

Indeed, in this initial launch, the focus is all about what you want to say on Threads itself — not lots of bells and whistles, and not trying to compete against the likes of Slack, or Workplace (Facebook’s effort in this space), or Yammer or Teams from Microsoft, or any of the others in the messaging mix.

There are no integrations of other programs to bring data into Threads from other places, but there is a Slack integration in the other direction: you can create an alert there so that you know when someone has updated a Thread.

“We don’t view ourselves as a competitor to Slack,” Kazi said. “Slack is great for transactional conversation but for asynchronous chats, we thought there was a need for this in the market. We wanted something to address that.”

It’s may not be a stated competitor, but Threads actually has something in common with Slack: the latter’s launched with the purpose of enabling a certain kind of conversation between co-workers in a way that was easier to consume and engage with than email.

You could argue that Threads has the same intention: email chains, especially those with multiple parties, can also be hard to follow and are in any case often very messy to look at: something that the conversations in Threads also attempt to clear up.

But email is not the only kind of conversation medium that Threads thinks it can replace.

“With in-person meetings there is a constant tension between keeping the room small for efficiency and including more people for transparency,” said Sequoia partner Mike Vernal in a statement. “When we first started chatting with the team about what is now Threads, we saw an opportunity to get rid of this false dichotomy by making decision-making both more efficient and more inclusive. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Threads to make work more inclusive.”

The startup was actually formed in 2017, and for months now it has been running a closed, private version of the service to test it out with a small amount of users. So far, the company sizes have ranged between 5 and 60 employees, Kazi tells me.

“By using Threads as our primary communications platform, we’ve seen incredible progress streamlining our operations,” said one of the testers, Perfect Keto & Equip Foods Founder and CEO, Anthony Gustin. “Internal meetings have reduced by at least 80 percent, we’ve seen an increase in participation in discussion and speed of decision making, and noticed an adherence and reinforcement of company culture that we thought was impossible before. Our employees are feeling more ownership and autonomy, with less work and time that needs to be spent — something we didn’t even know was possible before Threads.”

Kazi said that the intention is ultimately to target companies of any size, although it will be worth watching what features it will have to introduce to help handle the noise, and continue to provide coherent discussions, when and if they do start to tackle that end of the market.

 



source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/27/threads-emerges-from-stealth-with-10-5m-from-sequoia-for-a-new-take-on-enabaling-work-conversations/
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Threads emerges from stealth with $10.5M from Sequoia for a new take on enabaling work conversations

The rapid rise of Slack has ushered in a new wave of apps, all aiming to solve one challenge: creating a user-friendly platform where coworkers can have productive conversations. Many of these are based around real-time notifications and “instant” messaging, but today a new startup called Threads coming out of stealth to address the other side of the coin: a platform for asynchronous communication that is less time-sensitive, and creating coherent narratives out of those conversations.

Armed with $10.5 million in funding from Sequoia, the company is launching a beta of its service today.

Roussau Kazi, the startup’s CEO who co-founded threads with Jon McCord, Mark Rich and Suman Venkataswamy, cut his social teeth working for six years at Facebook (with a resulting number of patents to his name around the mechanics of social networking), says that the mission of Threads is to become more inclusive when it comes to online conversations.

“After a certain number of people get involved in an online discussion, conversations just break and messaging becomes chaotic,” he said. (McCord and Rich are also Facebook engineering alums, while Venkataswamy is a Bright Roll alum who worked with McCord on another startup before this.)

And if you have ever used Twitter, or even been in a popular channel in Slack, you will understand what he is talking about. When too many people begin to talk, the conversation gets very noisy and it can mean losing the “thread” of what is being discussed, and seeing conversation lurch from one topic to another, often losing track of important information in the process.

And there is an argument to be made for whether a platform that was built for real-time information is capable of handling a difference kind of cadence. Twitter, as it happens, is trying to figure that out right now. Slack, meanwhile, has itself introduced threaded comments to try to address this too — although the practical application of its own threading feature is not actually very user friendly.

Threads answer is to view its purpose as addressing the benefit of “asynchronous” conversation.

To start, those who want to start threads first register as organizations on the platform. Then, those who are working on a project or in a specific team creates a “space” for themselves within that org. You can then start threads within those spaces. And when a problem has been solved or the conversation has come to a conclusion, the last comment gets marked as the conclusion.

The idea is that topics and conversations that can stretch out over hours, days or even longer, around specific topics. Threads doeesn’t want to be the place you go for red alerts or urgent requests, but where you go when you have thoughts about a work-related subject and how to tackle it.

[gallery ids="1789615,1789614,1789613,1789612,1789611,1789609,1789608,1789607,1789606"]

These resulting threads, when completed or when in progress, can in turn be looked at as straight conversations, or as annotated narratives.

For now, it’s up to users themselves to annotate what might be important to highlight for readers, although when I asked him, Kazi told me he would like to incorporate over time more features that might use natural language processing to summarize and pull out what might be worth following up or looking at if you only want to skim read a longer conversation. Ditto the ability to search threads. Right now it’s all based around keywords but you can imagine a time when more sophisticated and nuanced searches to surface conversations relevant to what you might be looking for.

Indeed, in this initial launch, the focus is all about what you want to say on Threads itself — not lots of bells and whistles, and not trying to compete against the likes of Slack, or Workplace (Facebook’s effort in this space), or Yammer or Teams from Microsoft, or any of the others in the messaging mix.

There are no integrations of other programs to bring data into Threads from other places, but there is a Slack integration in the other direction: you can create an alert there so that you know when someone has updated a Thread.

“We don’t view ourselves as a competitor to Slack,” Kazi said. “Slack is great for transactional conversation but for asynchronous chats, we thought there was a need for this in the market. We wanted something to address that.”

It’s may not be a stated competitor, but Threads actually has something in common with Slack: the latter’s launched with the purpose of enabling a certain kind of conversation between co-workers in a way that was easier to consume and engage with than email.

You could argue that Threads has the same intention: email chains, especially those with multiple parties, can also be hard to follow and are in any case often very messy to look at: something that the conversations in Threads also attempt to clear up.

But email is not the only kind of conversation medium that Threads thinks it can replace.

“With in-person meetings there is a constant tension between keeping the room small for efficiency and including more people for transparency,” said Sequoia partner Mike Vernal in a statement. “When we first started chatting with the team about what is now Threads, we saw an opportunity to get rid of this false dichotomy by making decision-making both more efficient and more inclusive. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Threads to make work more inclusive.”

The startup was actually formed in 2017, and for months now it has been running a closed, private version of the service to test it out with a small amount of users. So far, the company sizes have ranged between 5 and 60 employees, Kazi tells me.

“By using Threads as our primary communications platform, we’ve seen incredible progress streamlining our operations,” said one of the testers, Perfect Keto & Equip Foods Founder and CEO, Anthony Gustin. “Internal meetings have reduced by at least 80 percent, we’ve seen an increase in participation in discussion and speed of decision making, and noticed an adherence and reinforcement of company culture that we thought was impossible before. Our employees are feeling more ownership and autonomy, with less work and time that needs to be spent — something we didn’t even know was possible before Threads.”

Kazi said that the intention is ultimately to target companies of any size, although it will be worth watching what features it will have to introduce to help handle the noise, and continue to provide coherent discussions, when and if they do start to tackle that end of the market.

 



source https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/27/threads-emerges-from-stealth-with-10-5m-from-sequoia-for-a-new-take-on-enabaling-work-conversations/
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